Thailand follows well-worn Asian path from Democracy

The PAD argues that the votes of the rural poor, which swept the popular Thaksin and Samak to power, have been bought with free healthcare and improved living standards, degrading the state of democracy in the country. The irony is that PAD wants a new parliament with a 70:30 split: 70% appointees, and 30% elected representatives. This would give power to the army and bureaucracy rather than the poor majority. It's similar to the system used by Indonesia's former dictator president Suharto, and currently proposed by the military junta in Burma hardly shining examples of democracy. That, says Thomas Bell in The Daily Telegraph, is a blow to the region. "Of the ten members of Asean the club of South East Asian Nations only five, including Thailand, claim to be democracies."

Still, there might be one beneficiary from the violence, says Duncan McCargo in The Guardian. Thaksin, holed up in his Surrey mansion, has applied for asylum in the UK. "The newly declared state of emergency in Bangkok may strengthen his claim that he should not be sent home just yet."

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